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Brookies and a surprise...

Hadn't fished my favorite mountain stream in about two years due to a mysterious kill off or disappearance of any fish in the stream. Electro shocking by the Dept. Game & Inland Fisheries folks a couple of years ago turned up no fish...nothing...nada! They usually shock the same two 300 meter sample areas and to everyone's surprise they got nothing after healthy samplings the previous six months. Later investigation didn't turn up a singular culprit that they could put a finger on and there were multiple possible choices. However, if the below views show up okay you can see the current health of the stream now. Was very pleasantly surprised and especially delighted to find several of the bigger pictured fishies also still in the stream. In two trips turned up five of the big ones from 12" to 16" and beautifully colored. An Elk Hair Caddis in size 12 is a killer on this stream but also decided to try one other which is pictured in one of the below photos. Those big 'un's were a pretty good load on a three weight and 6X tippet. Water temp was 57 and 58 degrees both trips. Stream was slightly colored after a good rain the day before and very clear on the second trip. Thankfully the old adage "One and done" didn't seem to always apply when flailing each small run or pool. Haven't seen any rattlers yet but folks tell me that at the very upper limits of the stream there's a healthy population of them. My wife's mantra is "the only good snake is a dead snake" but she doesn't practice that in actuality. Now, if the left knee will hold out a mite longer I'll be back ASAP.